Wim Scheers and his partner Annelies are the third generation working in the family business, Scheers Rose Nursery, in Kontich, Belgium. In the mid 1970’s the
company switched from growing vegetables to cut roses. Father Karel retired in 2014 and the company is now being run by new, young, and enthusiastic managers. Today this nursery spans 36,000 m2.

For years, we’ve been searching for

ways to increase lighting

capacity without increasing energy costs.”

- Wim Scheers, Co-owner, Scheers Rose Nursery BVBA

The challenge

Since Scheers was growing very high quality roses with this system, he did not want the greenhouse to become too warm. Scheers says, “For years I’ve been looking for a way to buy as little electricity as possible, because this energy comes at a high price due to the transport and distribution costs.” The only way to increase the lighting capacity was to install energy-efficient LEDs.

The right lighting

Scheers has been a Philips customer for ten years. In the summer of 2015, Philips Key Accountmanager Wim Steeghs proposed doing a small trial with LEDs. “After a few discussions it was clear to us that we should increase the size of this trial to the entire greenhouse of 1.5 hectares,” says Scheers. “If you want to do a trial, you have to do it right.”

The nursery purchased a new lighting installation consisting of two lines of Philips GreenPower LED toplighting. The capacity of the new lighting system is over one-and-a-half times higher than the old system. Despite this, much less heat is produced. Scheers can use the LEDs and HPS lights separately from each other.

When just the LEDs are on, there is 50% less heat produced compared to the old system. Scheers expects that he can turn on the lights for 500 to 750 hours more per year thanks to the ‘cool’ advantages of the LED toplighting. By installing this system, Scheers has not had to adapt the power supply of the company.